The Joy of the Lord is Your Strength! We read this verse in the Bible, we hear about it in sermons, we even sing about it. But what does this really mean? Simply this: The devil can't defeat a joyful believer! No matter how bleak your problem looks or how bad your circumstances are, if you can read your Bible, you can rejoice. And if you can rejoice, you are a candidate for victory!
Over 500,000 copies sold “Why is God allowing this? What have I done wrong?” Many of us have asked these questions when life hits us hard. When our circumstances defy explanation, it is difficult to untangle our emotions from the truth. Before long, we feel confused and frustrated. We doubt His care for us. We wonder how He could allow these circumstances at all, or if He is really in control. During a time of darkness and adversity in his own life, Jerry Bridges dug deep into the Bible for answers on God’s sovereignty. What he learned changed his life—and it will change yours too. Find the answers to some of your most heartfelt questions, such as: Is God in control? Can I trust God? What is our responsibility when things are hard? How can I grow through adversity? And more Explore the scope of God’s care and control over nations, nature, and the tiny details of your life. You’ll find yourself trusting Him more completely―even when life hurts. Now with an added study guide for personal use or group discussion so you can dive deeper into this staple of Jerry Bridges’s classic collection. “The writings of Jerry Bridges are a gift to the church. He addresses a relevant topic with the wisdom of a scholar and the heart of a servant.” —Max Lucado, pastor and bestselling author
“A triumph. This novel’s haunting strength will hold the reader until the very end and make Faith and her story impossible to forget.” —Richmond Times Dispatch “Extraordinary.” —Orlando Sentinel From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Jodi Picoult (Nineteen Minutes, Change of Heart, Handle with Care) comes Keeping Faith: an “addictively readable” (Entertainment Weekly) novel that “makes you wonder about God. And that is a rare moment, indeed, in modern fiction” (USA Today).
This is an essential companion to The Presbyterian Hymnal and Hymns, Psalms, & Spiritual Songs. Church musicians and pastors will welcome the ease with which they can locate keywords, topics, and scriptural references.
Pope Benedict XVI is too late for Wanda Aigner's father, who believed in limbo. When at three days Wanda became deathly ill, her father nearly had an accident in his Model A Ford on Minnesota's gravel roads in mid-January as he sped to their pastor to get his daughter baptized. Still alive and well and having had an adventurous life both in the States and abroad, this memoir searches the highs and lows of a life dedicated to missions. If you wish to see Jesus, learn how he spoke to Wanda through a grandmother, leading her to not only assurance of salvation but also a call to missions. Try, if you will, counting the times Jesus healed her or helped her with demon problems. Be enlightened of Satan's wiles, inspired by Wanda's faithfulness, and encouraged to keep on keeping on-with your guard up. You may well find yourself challenged when you recognize the much more than ample proof of this autobiographer's declaration, I'm Just Wanda, but...JESUS Is G-O-D!
2017 Christianity Today Book Award winner (“Christian Living / Discipleship” category) Get ready for the wettest, stormiest, wildest trip through the Gospel you’ve ever taken! The gospels are dramatic, wild, and wet—set in a rich maritime culture on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus’ first disciples were ragtag fishermen, and Jesus’ messages and miracles teem with water, fish, fishermen, net-breaking catches, sea crossings, boat-sinking storms, and even a walk on water. Because this world is foreign and distant to us, we’ve missed much about the disciples’ experiences and about following Jesus—until now. Leslie Leyland Fields—a well-known writer, respected biblical exegete, and longtime Alaskan fisherwoman—crosses the waters of time and culture to take us out on the Sea of Galilee, through a rugged season of commercial fishing with her family in Alaska, and through the waters of the New Testament. You’ll be swept up in a fresh experience of the gospels, traveling with the fishermen disciples from Jesus’ baptism to the final miraculous catch of fish—and also experiencing Leslie’s own efforts to follow Christ out on her own Alaskan sea. In a time when so many are “unfollowing” Jesus and leaving the Church, Crossing the Waters delivers a fresh encounter with Jesus and explores what it means to “come, follow me.”
“That life is made up of new beginnings is a truism we cannot escape as we enter the circle of another year. With two faces, one looking back and the other forward, we approach the opening month on our calendar. It signifies life and promise and seems to say to our hearts, ‘Grow old along with me, the best is yet to be.’”—Herbert LockyerIn these Bible-based meditations, Lockyer ponders the message God sends through the seasons to the hearts and souls of humanity. Seasons of the Lord is as multicolored as the leaves of autumn and as spiritually refreshing as the first day of spring.This yearlong devotional combines four of Herbert Lockyer’s seasonal devotionals into one source, with devotions for each day of the year, complete with Scriptures and relevant reflections.
Profound reflections on the cross that help you to meditate on and marvel at the sacrificial love of Jesus. This book can be used as a devotional, especially during Lent and Easter. These profound reflections on the cross from David Mathis, author of The Christmas We Didn’t Expect, will help you to meditate on and marvel at Jesus’ life, sacrificial death, and spectacular resurrection-enabling you to treasure anew who Jesus is and what he has done. Many of us are so familiar with the Easter story that it becomes easy to miss subtle details and difficult to really enjoy its meaning. This book will help you to pause and marvel at Jesus, whose now-glorified wounds are a sign of his unfailing love and the decisive victory that he has won: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5) This book can be used as a devotional. The chapters on Holy Week make it especially helpful during the Lent season and at Easter.
Jesus: His Story in Stone is a reflection on still-existing stone objects that Jesus would have known, seen, or even touched. Each of the seventy short chapters is accompanied by a photograph taken on location in Israel. Arranged chronologically, the one-page meditations compose a portrait of Christ as seen through the significant stones in His life, from the cave where He was born to the rock of Calvary. While packed with historical and archaeological detail, the book’s main thrust is devotional, leading the reader both spiritually and physically closer to Jesus.
